Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2008 3:18 pm
Are you getting better Kim?
South Pacific/Indian Ocean/Gulf of Carpentaria/Great Australian Bight Luthiers
http://anzlf.com/
Well, Kim, I'm glad to hear that you're apparently mending (with the return of skin sensation), and I'm hoping that you are wrong about the "easy entry of fluids" concept. I have only anecdotal evidence, but my wife's ankles probably doubled in size for at least half of her pregnancy - to the point where her skin was shiny - and they went back to normal. So, I'm hoping that as your body kicks out and sloughs off the last vestiges of the T-cell vs epoxy battle remnants, that all will be normal again for you.Kim wrote:Thanks for the concern guys,
Essentially the epoxy now seems mostly gone out of my system. However the affects are still hanging around. To cut a long one short, the bodies response to invasion by toxins to which it has no natural defence is to create killer "T" cells. These Tcells kill everything in the area, by everything, I mean that they do not discriminate between your own bodies tissue and the invading element. The end result is that your skin cells, nerve endings, everything get destroyed as your body rids itself of the culprit.
This is pretty amazing stuff and the fact the nerve endings are attacked by these Tcells explains why the itch is just a whole new thing that you can never imagine unless you have been there. I made a statement when I told you guys about this that it was all I could do to resist tearing my flesh from the bones. Believe it, that was not bullshit.
Anyhow, when I say that the affects still linger, I refer to the fact that I am only just now, after the 3 months it has taken for the nerve endings to reestablish themselves, beginning to get some feeling back in the skin surface of my shins. As stated this was the worst affected area and up until a week or two ago, I had no sensation there at all.
That now on the mend, there is a couple of things that still concern me. As you may recall from my post above, so bad was the swelling in my legs when I presented to the ER that I was misdiagnosed and admitted into hospital where they began IV antibiotic treatment for cellulitis, they where convinced that such swelling and redness could only be caused by infection.
Well the down side of this is the root cause of the itch remained untreated for about 10 days whilst the epoxy and the Tcells had it out. The fall out of this battle was the production of lots of fluid which caused the swelling which being left untreated just got worse and worse to a point where my legs where shining. What concerns me now is that while most of this swelling has dissipated, or it does so when I sleep, a good amount returns to my lower legs when I stand for a while. I can only imagine that the forced passage of this fluid from the onset of this ailment has now left a legacy of easy entry of fluid back into my legs for the rest of my freak'in days.
Other than that, I feel fine but still no "Phew" I'm afraid. On a brighter note, I did actually string up my guitar last night and so far it seems to be OK and has no swelling at all.
Cheers
Kim